Tilting at Windmills

Brian Hibbs goes to New Orleans for ALA and muses about DC's march on Wal-Mart

THIS IS THE BIG ONE! Retailer Brian Hibbs analyses 2017's bookstore sales with actual numbers, and this time with the complete cooperation and help of NPD Bookscan.

By Brian Hibbs There’s a particular Myth of the market that says that the “Wednesday Warriors” – the hardcore, most committed fan, who comes in every week without fail, usually on a Wednesday – are...

  By Brian Hibbs Dear C.B., I want to congratulate you on your new position as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel comics; from what I know about you I think you’ll probably fit the job pretty well. There’s been...

By Brian Hibbs So, this is kind of hard column to write, because it means being vulnerable and honest about issues that are genuinely hard to discuss, especially in the exact political climate we live...

By Brian Hibbs I’m a little bored with continually talking about Marvel comics and “Legacy” – there’s not a lot more to say about them now until we get into the sell-through phase in about...

By Brian Hibbs As I write this, it’s the deadline to order the October “Legacy” re-positioning from Marvel, with the lenticular covers. Marvel has been explicit that if we don’t order the lenticulars by the...

By Brian Hibbs The solicits for August 2017 Marvel comics have finally been released – the start of “Marvel Legacy” – and I think it is now fair to ask if Marvel actually hears or...

In his monthly column, retailer Brian Hibbs rips the lid off secret retailing groups, and muses on Marvel Legacy.

By Brian Hibbs So, right now Marvel comics is in a little spot of trouble. In February 2017 Marvel’s best-selling ongoing superhero title barely passed 60k on the Diamond chart estimates. They ran three “event”...

Variant covers are an accepted practice in comics publishing and collecting, but is Diamond enforcing its own rules on minimum orders? Retailer Brian Hibbs looks at the plusses and minuses of the world of variants.

It was another year of amazing growth in 2016, and it brings the Top 750 to the highest numbers it has ever charted in the history of my tracking Bookscan – Now topping over ten million graphic novels sold! Amazing performance, and hopefully we can now stop talking forever about silliness like “the death of comics” or “the death of print”. Both are doing just fine!